


Soft Things

by Torchiclove



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Light Angst, i didn't tag it as the ship but it can easily be interpreted as romantic if you want it to be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-17 18:17:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14836766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Torchiclove/pseuds/Torchiclove
Summary: Beau thinks Cali is soft, but maybe that's not a bad thing.





	Soft Things

Soft things are not for Beauregard. They never have been. She’s all ragged edges that catch and tear, the snap of bone, the dull thud of a fist against flesh. She even looks sharp—an uninviting, severe jaw, angular hips, a jagged smile. 

She meets Cali and knows immediately that she is _soft_. Her stuttering speech, the excitability, the nauseating niceness—it’s dizzying. It’s like too much sugar coating Beau’s teeth, sticky and unpleasant and burning the back of her throat. Beau was not made to enjoy soft things, and this no exception, and all she can feel is pity for the day Cali will be less soft, when her edges will be torn and frayed.

Beau admits, she half expects her to die out in the swamp. The scales and clawed hand are impressive, but many people who look strong are not, and that’s only half the battle, anyway. Beau is not strong, physically, not _naturally_. She can’t lift like Yasha and Jester. But she’s strong anyway, because she made herself that way, because she _worked_ for it. Cali speaks of magic that comes from within and Beau chafes. It is fitting for someone so soft to have received their power as a gift, when the rest of them, not special, are made to work for it.

Beau second guesses herself when she sees the fireball. She’s seen Caleb’s magic enough to get a sense that this spell is _powerful_ , coming from the bumbling claws of this over-excited girl. But still, there’s the nagging sense that she’s got the talent but not to guts to make it. 

She doesn’t see much of Cali in the fight with the troll, because she doesn’t see much of anything. She’s out before she knows it, her skin burning, and she fades into unconsciousness despite the desperate scream of her body to keep fighting. Beau hates this, being helpless, and she hates it even more when she realizes it’s _Cali_ who’s rescued her. Cali, soft, who’s never been in a fight. And nevertheless with magic, a strength gifted to her by some ancient, fuck-off dragon. 

Fabron Keys is dead. Beau feels like shit, and Cali comes out the other side singing. She’s too sweet for her own good. She’s going to get herself killed, if not here then somewhere else. She _trusts_ them, a band of assholes she just met. Nobody in their right mind would trust Beau at a first glance, even less upon getting to know her. Beau knows not a _damn_ person in the Mighty Nein actually trusts her, not even Caleb. Maybe Jester, but it’s _Jester_ , and that isn’t saying much.

She’s fine. The sting of the poison eventually fades into a dull ache, barely present, and they move forward into the safehouse. Beau hangs back; this is not her element. A fight is her element, one where she can get up close and destroy without worry of retribution. It’s not long before she gets what she’s looking for. 

And finally, as the last fish-man goes down, Beau sees Cali fray. She turns to her and snarls, all sharp edges and hard anger, and this Cali is not soft. This is something primal, something beastly, and as Beau shrinks down to her normal size, she realizes that it makes her a little sad.

Soft things are not for Beau, and they never will be, but they are for Cali, and who is Beau to say that’s a bad thing? She calms quickly, and it’s almost a relief to have the old her back. Beau watches bemused as she frantically searches for the bowl, frazzled, cute. She runs her tongue over her teeth and thinks about the sticky-sweet of sugar, and finds herself craving it.

And then there’s Caleb, and the things he says to her, and what he’s done, and Beau feels a deep well of anger in her chest. She watches Caleb’s ragged edges catch and tear, the scars of his past leaving new marks on a new victim, and there is a righteous fury she can’t explain.

Beau realizes, dully, that she does not understand the power of this item. Hell, she realizes that Cali could be playing them, but something in her wants to believe that’s not true, that this beautiful, soft thing just _exists_ , with it’s torn and frayed edges hidden beneath a layer of scales. She has seen horrors and come out the other side singing, and rather than sickening that now feels rapturously wonderful. 

She snaps, perhaps harsher than she should, but Beau is sharp and cruel, and at least those things are being used to defend something that is in need of it. She is blunt. Caleb takes her words in ways she does not intend, but in the heat of it, in the anger, that’s not her _fucking_ problem. 

And Cali? Cali is sweet about it, quick to break the tension, to debase herself and please both of them. To thank Beau but insist that Caleb was in the right, and Beau wants to be mad at her for it, but she can’t. She wants to scream for her to stick up for herself, but something tells her that the words will fall on deaf ears. 

Cali leaves, struggling slightly to climb the rope with untrained hands, hands that have never seen battle before today. Beau wonders if she’s leaving them different than she found them; more weathered, perhaps? It doesn't seem likely. Her eyes look just as kind as they first time they saw them, her smile just as sweet. It hurts a little to see her go, but it’s for the best. She doesn’t belong among these rugged folk, these jagged, damaged people. They’ll only wear her down.

When Cali is gone, the room feels a little darker. Beau is once again surrounded with people who have no trust for her, who keep their distance now more than ever. They look at her with cold, shifting eyes. This is where she belongs, face half-hidden in shadow and glaring daggers at anyone who dares approach. She can see each different emotion—annoyance from Molly, disappointment from Fjord, indignance from Caleb, and fury from Nott—all directed at her, all palpable, and she catches each one like a punch to the chest.

She sits down and leans her head against the wall. She runs a hand over her jawline―sharp, angular, defined. She feels a desperate stab of desire for something soft beneath her fingers. She glances forlornly at the rope; all the soft things are gone from here. They weren’t for her, and they never will be.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm emo about Beau, she's just so...dumb and sad and confrontational


End file.
